Cuba

Cubans insist that the December 17, 2014 announcement of United States president Barack Obama and Cuban president Raúl Castro to re-establish diplomatic ties was only the first step toward a full normalization of relations between the two countries. After more than fifty years, at least three steps remain to be taken before interactions achieve the level that they should have.

Singer Vicente Feliú discusses the origin of the Nueva Trova, the influence of the Cuban revolution and responsibility towards Cuban society and other countries facing repression, as well as the aesthetics of Cuban revolutionary song.

A production model in Paraguay based on soy monoculture results in economic growth, but also causes social instability that can lead to political crises. The temptation is to use armed force to resolve them.

Modelled on Che Guevara’s principles and keeping in line with the Cuban revolution, Steve Brouwer’s assessment of Cuba’s health care system in his book Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care (Monthly Review Press, July 2011) stands as a testimony to answer anyone claiming that socialism cannot function.

When Americans spend $100 on health care, is it possible that only $4 goes to keeping them well and $96 goes somewhere else? Single payer health care advocates compare American health care to that in Western Europe or Canada and come up with figures of 20–30% waste in the US.

Cuba’s substantive dedication of humanitarian medical emergency aid to Haiti upon the disastrous 12 January 2010 magnitude 7 Port-Au-Prince earthquake followed 50 years of planned Cuban healthcare and first-response commitment internationally and across the global south.[…]

When Cuba’s revolutionary government banned racially-based discrimination, it showed a dedication to social equality. [1] But unequal access to housing, education, employment and medical care can be subtle. One of the best indicators of Cuba’s […]

The embarrassment over the detention of USAID employee Alan Gross on spy charges last December, and his links to the U.S. government’s controversial democracy promotion programs, has shed light on a murky area of U.S. politics and may have far-reaching consequences for the future of U.S.-Cuba relations.

This line is different from the many lines that are Cuban reality. There are hundreds of us, perhaps even a thousand, and we are dancing in a conga line down one of the most central streets in Havana. And we are not some random group of people; we are lesbians, gay men, transvestites, transsexuals and bisexuals, along with heterosexual friends and sometimes even families, all gathering for the International Day Against Homophobia.[…]

At the upcoming Summit of the Americas, Obama’s simple acknowledgement of the mistakes the Bush Administration made in policy towards Venezuela, especially the 2002 coup, could turn Chávez from a difficult adversary into a pragmatic partner.[…]